Squeeze/FCP 7

[darkew]

Hi guys,

Kind of a newbie here, so bear with me.

I have a DVX100AP. I had recently shot a few shorts that, when played back on my FullHD 32" LCD TV would be square in the center of the screen.

After a little research, I learned to shoot it in squeeze mode.

So here's what I did:

I shot a test project in 24p Advanced.
I imported it to Final Cut Pro 7 with the pulldown removal.
The sequence was created with the current settings, and I checked the Anamorphic 16:9 thing.
I cut a little, and exported it.

Voilá, I have a decent looking, full/wide screen picture on my tv.

EXCEPT THAT, it seems to be cutting some frames randomly in the final export.

It looks great in FCP, that only happens in the final movie.

It was exported with "current settings".

Am I doing something wrong when exporting??

Thank you!

 

[Kevmo]

What are your render settings? You not playing a video game or something like that when your rendering are you?

 

[darkew]

What are your render settings? You not playing a video game or something like that when your rendering are you?

Errr no, I don't play videogames.

What do you mean by render settings? I used the "same settings" as capture and sequence/timeline, so I'm guessing the output is 23,97 fps.

 

[alignment1]

welcome to the forum-

when you say cutting frames, do you mean when your exported sequence plays back, it is missing frames intemittently?

what are you playing on this HDTV?? Dvd?

 

[darkew]

welcome to the forum-

when you say cutting frames, do you mean when your exported sequence plays back, it is missing frames intemittently?

what are you playing on this HDTV?? Dvd?

Hi Zack,

Yes. I exported my sequence to a MOV file, and some bits of it don't match what is shown in the FCP sequence/timeline.

I just rendered the file and played back on my LCD 32" TV.

I'm wondering if there's any difference when capturing with the 24pA pulldown, the sequence settings, and the export options.

Thanks man.

 

[alignment1]

First and foremost (since your newbie), list the entire breakdown of your set-up- it is easier for us to diagnose your issue.

What kind of CPU, ram, displays, graphics card, software versions,(we've got the FCP7--but are your QT's up to date?)

ok, so I have this clear...

you are exporting a QT movie and displaying it on a 32" LCD TV that is hooked up to your computer??
It sounds like it's a QT thing not displaying properly on your tv.

Can you play back the QT on your desktop without a hitch? or do you still get some skipped frames? If you are successful in playing on your desktop I would try burning a DVD via compressor and playing that in a standalone dvd player hooked up to your 32" LCD. Most dvd player's to date can now play 24p dvd's(23.976).

If both of these methods yield the same result (skipped frames), then the issue lies before/during the export.

Z

 

[DGW]

darkew,
You definitely need to provide more info as alignment1 suggests. But one thought might be that if you are trying to playback 1080 footage on your computer and don't have enough horsepower, you might see your QT movie file skip. You can try to advance frame by frame in QT (if this is the method your using to view on your LCD) and that would tell you if all the frames have been encoded properly or if they are actually missing.

 

[lsc9x]

I THINK I have EXACTLY the answer to your dropped frames issue:

The critical setting to make sure you aren't dropping frames is to make sure that when you import 24ap footage into FCP is that you are importing at 29.97 frames per second!

I am going to repeat that: You need to import your 24ap footage into FCP at 29.97 frames per second. This is THE MOST important setting.

Why?

Well, the technical explanation is long, but let me try and sum it up:

When you shoot at 24ap on the DVX100 the camera takes 24 frames per second and has to convert that information and write that information to DV tape in 29.97 frames per second format because that is the technical spec for DV. DV does not allow for 24ap by itself. So, to get ALL of the frame data from your 24ap footage you have to capture ALL of the 29.97 data from your DV tape. Then, FCP ditches the "translation" information from 29.97, throws it out and then reassembles your 24ap footage in FCP. From that point on, you are getting ALL of your 24ap frames, you can work perfectly in a 24fps timeline, and you can then do what you want with it in FCP and you don't have to worry about it.

If you DO NOT capture your 24ap footage at 29.97fps into FCP, then FCP pretends like your device is working with 24 frames per second natively (like say a VariCam or an HVX might do...) and only gets most of your frame data. However, because your DV tape is actually running at 29.97 and FCP is only importing 24 fps you are essentially losing 20% of your image data!!!!!!

What this means in real life is that you are going to lose 20% of your resolution which is going to make your images look bad, and you will DEFINITELY lose frames! Not only that, but editing will become a nightmare trying to make everything look right.

Try it out. I did, and now my stuff looks GREAT!

=)

Peace.

PS: Oh, one last piece of info: If you do this, you will be working at 24fps in your timeline, so exporting at 24 fps at the end will give you a nice 24fps final video, however I do NOT know if this will cause problems on your TV because NTSC runs at 29.97fps. What I have heard is that it shouldn't be an issue on an LCD TV, but it might be on a 4:3.

Maybe someone else can shed some light on the correct export settings... I'd like to know!